Beauty
by Sangre Azul
Summary: He was beautiful once'. A oneshot from Kai's perspective about the moment that changed his relationship with Tala completely. Could be considered Yaoi or just really close friendship depending on how you look at it.


Author's Notes: So just a girl ranting on about reviewing as normal. Not much new to say really as I'm sure you've all heard the usual pleas to review before. But just on a side note about anyone who reads my story 'Resolutions', it will be updated just not that soon because of a distinct lack of inspiration. Any advice, ideas etc would be nice. Thank you.

XXX

He was beautiful once.

Know that. Know that before three years ago he had been the most beautiful person I'd ever seen.

He is not beautiful anymore. He's still good looking, still attractive, but he no longer has the purity to be deemed beautiful anymore.

His delicate features have been marred by a hardened edge to them, no longer soft and slightly feminine. His hair had been a brilliant hue of crimson but now it's a darker, more intimidating maroon. His eyes have stayed the same colour but before when before the cerulean eyes resembled the sea in how emotive they were, now they're frozen and cold like ice. His skin is still pale but even there something has changed. The once flawless ivory has changed to an off white. Tainted snow.

Perfection ruined.

Innocence lost.

And it's all my fault.

XXX

I stepped into my small room, mind weary from a conversation with my grandfather about our _arrangements_, only to be met with an accusing glare. He still showed emotion then. Or at least, back then I knew him well enough to be able to read his emotions.

"Is it true?" he snapped, blue eyes flashing with a mixture of hurt and anger. I neither had the sympathy nor the weakness in me to say 'no'. But I didn't have the bluntness or the courage to say 'yes' either. So I cast my gaze away from him to an unremarkable spot on the ground. My ashamed stance said it all.

"It's true," he murmurred quietly but I could detect the off note in his voice, the emotion that was weaved into his soft tone. His eyes fell to the floor as he processed the new information.

"Tala..." I said, reaching out to grab his shoulder. He jerked away from me though and stared up at me with blazing eyes.

"Why?" he demanded, his voice husky and hoarse as if he needed to cough.

I knew how he was feeling. His stomach was burning and sending uncomfortable heat waves throughout his body whilst his brain sent messages to cool himself down giving the unpleasant sensation of simultaneously sweating and shivering. There were constraints on his lungs making every breath a sharp, painful process especially with his nose beginning to block up. There was a throb in his head, not an acute pain, just a dull one that came from his brain frantically trying to keep up with what was going on. And there was the stinging in the eyes, the glossy eyes that told me that Tala was struggling not to cry.

"_Why?"_ he demanded, more fiercely this time, his body trembling with what I knew he'd love to pass off as rage. _"Why would you want to leave?"_

Well that question in itself would have been a very easy one to answer; after all there wasn't anyone trapped in the Abbey who didn't dream of escaping it one day. However he wasn't really asking why would I would to leave the Abbey. He was asking why would I want to leave _him_.

And I didn't want to leave him. He was my best friend. We had grown up together. We played endless games of paper, scissors, rock, and made pinky promises together; things that we would never dream of admitting we did, let alone doing now that we're older. The thing was though, as much as I didn't want to leave him, my desire to leave the Abbey was stronger.

"How did you know?" I asked, deflecting Tala's question with my own.

"Oh come on," Tala rolled his eyes scornfully. "You know Boris can't keep anything to himself. Once your grandfather told him, he told it to one of the scientists and Spencer told me." He sneered at me, his curled lip twisting his features making them momentarily harsh and ugly.

"You're just avoiding the topic," he stated plainly. "Now what's going on?"

I sighed. It wasn't that it was a long and arduous tale to tell, in fact if anything, the shortness and simplicity of it embarrassed me.

"Grandfather said he had business to attend to in Japan," I explained. "He offered to take me with him."

"When?" Tala bit, his hands balled into fists with his knuckles rapidly turning into that same shade that bruises begin as.

"A few days ago," I admitted, my own stomach churning with Tala's eyes glinting ominously at me.

I should have mentioned something to him earlier, he was my best friend. But I could never quite bring myself to tell him I was leaving. Leaving the Abbey, my old life, and most regrettably, him behind. Every time I wanted to say something, my throat would dry up and then clog up with clichés and other meaningless words. My palms would sweat and I'd start to feel dizzy and on the verge on vomiting. I was too much of a coward.

"And when do you leave?"

Before my expression had been calm but now I cringed. "Tomorrow," I told him, wishing that his nose wasn't raised in disdain, that his forehead wasn't crinkled in rage, that underneath the fury in his eyes I couldn't see the sorrow.

"So when were you intending to tell me?" Tala queried, the anger and flame drained from his voice and was replaced with a far more dangerous icy tone. His facial expressions had calmed down as well; his face was blank with only the glistening of tears on his lower lashes betraying how he felt.

"I don't know," I conceded miserably.

"So theoretically you might have just left me to suffer here while you go frolicking off in Japan without so much as a farewell?"

Technically the fact that I was going to Japan with my grandfather meant that no frolicking would be done but I knew what Tala meant. The Abbey was a dank, shadowy place where it was preferable to be stuck in the dark afraid but still blissfully ignorant, than to have those penetrating fluorescent lights reveal every detail of the horrors that went on. Whilst my grandfather was still no sunshine and lollipops man, he was safer than the Abbey

"You still have Spencer, Bryan and Ian," I offered weakly, knowing that Tala was not particularly close with any of them.

"Oh joy," Tala mocked. "In return for losing my best friend I get a guy who never talks, a homicidal maniac and an annoying midget. Wow Kai you've really made my day."

"Tala don't," I begged, hating the feeling of guilt that weighed heavily on my shoulders. The guilt that had the same bitter, metallic taste of blood and rust.

He turned away from me and tentatively I reached out to him again. This time he allowed me to rest my hand on his shoulder and squeeze it as if that small gesture of good will would make up for the fact that I was, not just in his view but in mine as well, abandoning him.

"Tala, I'm sorry," I apologised. Tala spun around suddenly, grabbing my hand that was outstretched in mid-air and crushing it in his grip.

"Selfish," he growled through gritted teeth.

"What?"

"Tala, I'm _selfish_, is the truth," he spat and stormed away. There was no mistaking the tears that had just plunged down onto his cheeks, staining them. There was also no mistaking that he was right.

I was selfish.

XXX

I still am selfish actually. I left the next morning and he was stuck on his own. He was left to become a robot in not just the literal sense. Left to endure the cruelty of Boris and the scientists at the Abbey by himself while I got a fresh start.

And when I saw him again there was no doubt of the change that my departure had brought.

And when Tyson and the like rampage on about what a cold-hearted cyborg he is, I remember him how he was before that moment where we never spoke as friends again.

I remember.

He was beautiful once.


End file.
